Category Archive for 'Institutions'

My amazing colleague, Stan Engerman, famous for his work Time on the Cross, just shared with me a short retrospective now that 40 years has passed since the publication of that book. Here are some tidbits from that work. Stan actually does get invited to dinner parties despite this, demonstrating that I have much to learn about […]

Among the most common ideas I see put forth in regard to the Baltimore rioting is that “the city” has suffered from decades of neglect and that the people of Baltimore have systematically had their environment poisoned (e.g. lead paint and dirty soils), their housing crumbled (e.g. large swaths of vacated and abandoned buildings) and […]

I hate to use the word anti-science or pro-science, I think for obvious reasons, but nonethless I use it. Here are some random findings: The consensus on public health requirements to put fluoride in your water The consensus on salt consumption The consensus on eating fat The consensus on milk consumption We could of course […]

Just finished the thoroughly enjoyable A History of Pi by Petr Beckmann. It is over 40 years old but has aged well. It’s more than just a math book: Then there is Roman engineering: the Roman roads, aqueducts, the Colosseum. Warfare, alas, has always been beneficial to engineering. Yet there are unmistakable trends in the engineering of […]

Here is some from Slate Star, and note the observations about the Voxers: Racism is a uniquely divisive issue. Minorities hear it and think of Klansmen trying to kill them. White people hear it and think of witch-hunters trying to get them fired. A single death in a random Midwestern town has turned half the […]

Just finished reading Mark Goldman’s history of Buffalo called City on the Edge. It is certainly recommended if you are a history or architecture buff and love Western, NY. The book goes through the glorious and agonizing history of the city, neighborhood by neighborhood. While it doesn’t beat you over the head with the theme, it is […]

My family and I attended a swanky golf tournament yesterday (the Barclays, played at the austere Ridgewood Country Club). Needless to say, the place is populated with a slice of folks from the very top of the income distribution with a sprinkling of “regular Joes” tossed in. Two small obsvervations: I have rarely encountered more […]